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By Christopher DrewTHE NEW YORK TIMES • Saturday April 6, 2013 7:52 AM

A Boeing 787 flew for nearly two hours yesterday in a flight that wrapped up the company’s tests
of modifications to its lithium-ion batteries meant to prevent fires.

The company said it would analyze the results of several weeks of testing, which included
blowing up the batteries in labs, and then forward the results to the Federal Aviation
Administration.

The innovative planes have been grounded worldwide since mid-January, when a battery fire broke
out on a jet parked in Boston and another 787 made an emergency landing in Japan with a smoking
battery.

Aviation analysts estimate that Boeing and several airline customers have lost hundreds of
millions of dollars as a result of the grounding, and Boeing is trying to get the planes back in
the air as soon as possible.

Boeing said the plane flown in yesterday’s test was awaiting delivery to LOT Polish Airlines.
The jet left Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at 10:39 a.m., Pacific time, with a crew of 11,
including two representatives of the FAA. It flew for 1 hour, 49 minutes, landing back at the field
at 12:28 p.m.

Boeing said the flight was meant to demonstrate that the new battery system would work as
expected during normal and abnormal flight conditions, though it did not specify the range of
conditions it was testing.

It said that the test flight was uneventful and that it would deliver the data to the FAA “in
the coming days.”

Last month, the FAA approved more than 20 types of tests to determine whether the new battery
system would virtually eliminate the risk of battery fires, as Boeing contends it will.

Boeing has said that its new battery system has better insulation between the eight cells,
gentler charging to minimize stress and a new titanium system to vent any smoke or gases out of the
plane.

Yesterday’s flight was the only one to test the new batteries in the air. It recently flew two
other flights to test other systems on the plane.